a customer of mine had there server setup by a 'friend' who configured it with Server 2008 Std before i started looking after them. They have 5 people in the office and it always puzzled me why they didnt get SBS 2008.

Anyway, they need some sort of email solution as POP3 and PST's are not working for them. They are worried about loosing emails as we have already had one corrupt PST from a hard drive failure.

I have put together a proposal to format and reload the server SBS2008 but you can imagine the costs and time involved.

So my question.....other than hosted exchange, what other Email server to people recomend for the Small Business Enviroment that will work in a similar way to exchange (Central database, MAPI, etc)??

personally i would never recommend a MS SBS to a company with that few employees..... i would however look to save them a ton-o-cash by implementing zentyal the linux small business server.... (formerly ebox) and can be found here :

This will serve as a dhcp, dns, pdc, ldap, file server, firewall, Anti Virus, chat, voip, email server of greatness....... i have yet to find a better solution for a small business..... its free, its stable, does almost everything....... based on debian/ubuntu.....

@ Kcorbin - really? I know and look after plenty of business who use and love SBS. The problem with open source sbs solutions is that not many people support them. I have been to companys before where they had a linux type sbs server and the previous support company went bust and guess what, nobody would support it.

I have about 6 of these boxes around the world and have never had a issue with getting any type of support..... not that we have ever needed support...... its a web interface and click to config.... if you understand setting up your domain and network then you can support this system..... zentyal is a global company and has paid support..... also its based on the ubuntu /debian variant of linux..... (widely supported) and if that isn't enough for you..... the average company pays several thousand dollars in licensing for MS SBS and then cals and this license and that..... zentyal is FREE...... that in its self is worth the effort....

one of our zentyal boxes has had an uptime of 672 days...... with out a issue.... and it is patched and upto date..... and virus free...... no crashes, no slowdowns, nothing....... just steady rock solid performance.....

see the problem with SBS is the Licenses..... that and as a platform itself it is terribly unstable.... the instance of SQL that is in SBS is crap , and put a terrible amount of load on the SBS where as you could run postgresql on the zentyal box and not see the huge drain on the resources....

an office that has 5 -75 people is an ideal case for the zentyal server....

Doesnt their current solution support IMAP? Email stays on the server untill they delete it and a cached copy on the local machine. I dont know why anyone uses pop anymore as its so limited. SBS/Exchange is a pretty big and expensive product for just 5 people. If you need another product then look at http://www.hmailserver.com

Use Google Apps Sync for MS Outlook and they can keep Outlook on the desktop (via MAPI rather than POP or IMAP).

Inexpensive. Reliable.

Hell. Small business. Even Google Apps standard works fine.

Agreed.

BUT with Standard you get ads, your data is indexed to present the ads, and you cannot use Google Apps Sync for MS Outlook. While the lower storage space and outbound mail quantity limits do not impact most small businesses, most of the small businesses we speak with want the added security and features of Premier.

For a solid e-mail solution, you may want to look at Zimbra. (www.zimbra.com). We have been on the FOSS version from over a year and a half now and whole world better than the ole' POP3 and Outlook which we had for the longest time...

@ Kcorbin - really? I know and look after plenty of business who use and love SBS. The problem with open source sbs solutions is that not many people support them. I have been to companys before where they had a linux type sbs server and the previous support company went bust and guess what, nobody would support it.

I've never met a business happy with SBS once they found out the cost of the alternatives. No one is saying that SBS doesn't work or that customers wouldn't be happy if that was all that they knew.

But business is about making money and SBS is rarely a good financial decision because Exchange is rarely a good decision for small businesses. If a business doesn't know any better they'll be happy with whatever works. But would that same business still be happy if they saw the price difference between SBS and Zimbra and found out that Zimbra's client is often considered to be the superior choice and that Outlook was available if they didn't like Zimbra's client?

Some would still choose Exchange but some of those would only do so because they already have it. Few would wish to keep that decision back when they started.

There are companies for whom SBS is the right choice - but they are rare, IMHO. Only those who definitely need Exchange and have very little chance of having that need change over several product generations should consider it. And then only those for whom it makes sense to host their email in house, which is a very small percentage of SMB's anyway.

Doesnt their current solution support IMAP? Email stays on the server untill they delete it and a cached copy on the local machine. I dont know why anyone uses pop anymore as its so limited. SBS/Exchange is a pretty big and expensive product for just 5 people. If you need another product then look at http://www.hmailserver.com

No one should use POP. I'm convinced that the use of the term "POP Server" is someone confused about email. Exchange is every bit as much a "POP Server" as any other product on the market but people use it to mean "not Exchange" I think, which doesn't make any sense at all.

I have been to companys before where they had a linux type sbs server and the previous support company went bust and guess what, nobody would support it.

That seems hard to believe. Linux support is everywhere both from consulting firms and from the vendors themselves (Canonical, Novell, Red Hat, Oracle, etc.) There is so much Linux support that anyone can get it. I've never heard of a place that couldn't get Linux support - mostly because anyone who tells me that gets "well WE support it there, so why didn't you call US?" ;) But still, we have Linux support competition, a LOT of it, in every market we see.

Linux definitely does not have the "swinging a dead cat" market penetration of support like Windows does, but the support available is almost always vastly superior making shopping for support much easier, I believe because you don't have the "anyone out of work pretending to be a Windows support guy" problem. You get that now and then but you aren't wading through a see of incompetent, out of work noobs like you get when shopping for Windows support.

But if you run into anyone, anywhere who says that they can't get Linux support, tell them to email me. We are global and available around the clock, we support Windows, Linux (all distros), Solaris, AIX, Mac OSX, etc. We cover the bases.

Zentyal (debian/ubuntu based) is a good SBS alternative - as is ClearOS (CentOS based). I have experimented with both for a while. Both are building on their LDAP replication ( A must for real enterprise work)

Both a have a GUI style interface that works well for small shops who have little or no internal support. Even though I prefer CentOS, I have to admit that Zentyal's interface is a bit easier to use for small shops, YMMV

Both of these have one or more built-in options for email server setup as well.

1st Post

The catch all killer is Quickbooks, QB will never be supported on Linux. Most SMB run QB and therefore require a Windows Server of some kind.

I like SBS 2008 but I don't like Exchange/Sharepoint, which do not make a lot of sense for a small business, it add unecessary complexity and bogs down the server quite a bit.

Next years Aurora Small Business Server will offer a great option for QB users.

The other downside to Linux servers is that on a Client I have go get the files I need, with a Windows Network they are delivered to me (even if its virtual). Until (Unless I am missing one) there is a Linux server that delivers documents invisibly like Windows, it will play second fidddle despite the cost savings and uptime of Linux.

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